I Need a Hit Man. Now.

Last November, three people in Northern California responded to a posting on the classified ad site craigslist.org titled simply "Freelance." The premise was generic, if not a little secretive: the poster wanted someone who could work independently to complete a task without asking questions. The pay was $5,000. One of the respondents thought it might be a freelance writing gig, but after e-mailing for more details it became clear he'd just applied to be a hit man. The poster wrote back saying she was looking for "silent assassins" to "eradicate" a woman in nearby Oroville, Calif. All three respondents called their local sheriffs, who got in touch with the FBI. On Jan. 24, 48-year-old massage therapist Ann Marie Linscott was arrested at her home in Rockford, Mich., and charged with murder for hire. The intended victim was the wife of a man with whom Linscott was having an affair, according to her arrest warrant. Her lawyer says she'll plead guilty if she's not extradited to California.

Craigslist, which started in San Francisco in 1995 and evolved into the world's largest classified-ad service, where each month 30 million people engage in such benign pursuits as renting apartments and searching for jobs, has become the unwitting home to child pornographers, prostitution rings, drug dealers and an array of thugs and scam artists. As a result, law-enforcement agencies from county sheriffs to FBI cybercrime units have added the site to their beats. In Sacramento, Calif., the FBI is hard at work busting child prostitution, as agents spend hours each day on craigslist. "It's become our insertion point into most of these cases," says agent Drew Parenti, who has a team of seven detectives monitoring the site almost constantly. "They're on it sometimes 24 hours a day. We could use more manpower."

Seven years ago, as craigslist was first expanding to cities outside San Francisco and had only 200,000 users, reports of criminal activity were rare, says CEO Jim Buckmaster. "Back then, we were getting about one subpoena or search warrant every three years. Now it's about one a day." Still, he says, to characterize craigslist as being overrun with crime is misleading, given the tens of millions of postings that go up on the site each month. But does it bother the company to have law-enforcement officers roving its Web site? "In a way, these arrests help make the site safer," says Buckmaster. "The police have a job to do and we're here to help."

They certainly need it. Last month's murder-for-hire case was the latest in a rash of bizarre, and in one instance deadly, crimes linked to craigslist. On Jan. 8, police arrested the last of a group of seven New York teenagers who now await trial (two have pleaded not guilty) for their alleged role in beating and robbing people they'd lured to Long Island with ads for discounted late-model Porsches. Three days later, detectives in Westchester County, N.Y., announced the results of a nine-month sting operation into what they say was a high-end prostitution ring being run off craigslist. The results: 66 people arrested and more than $21,000 in confiscated cash. "Craigslist is the new 42nd Street," says Rye Brook, N.Y., Police Sgt. Terence Wilson, referring to the midtown Manhattan street notorious for streetwalkers in the '70s. Last May, a woman in Tacoma, Wash., was arrested after posting an ad on craigslist encouraging people to "help themselves" to the contents of her house. It was being demolished, she wrote, and gave the address. The unoccupied house was ransacked within a week. The catch? It belonged to her out-of-town relative. The most disturbing case came in October, when a 24-year-old Minnesota woman was murdered after responding to an ad for a nanny job. According to reports, the 19-year-old male suspect, in custody and charged with second-degree murder, had lured the victim with the ad and allegedly shot her once she was inside his house.

Buckmaster says these examples of violent crime are rare. The bulk of the crime on craigslist is fraud, mostly stolen items that end up for sale, and scam attempts from overseas. Rather than implement measures such as a secure payment system, the site, which has just 25 employees, relies on users to "flag" dubious activity. According to Buckmaster, roughly 20 percent of all postings end up being removed. For the most part, law-enforcement agents say, craigslist does a good job of policing itself and cooperating with investigations, providing IP addresses and the e-mail of suspects, so long as the cops have a search warrant or sub- poena. Brian Boetig, cybercrime supervisor in the FBI's San Francisco office, is the agency point man for craigslist investigations. He's processed hundreds of subpoenas and says he's in contact with craigslist almost every day. "They've been very cooperative," says Boetig. "Anybody puts a baby up for sale, it's usually down within minutes." Well, that's good to know.

© 2008